


Against The World

by Kay_Space_Prince (EliasGrey)



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 10:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11056755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EliasGrey/pseuds/Kay_Space_Prince
Summary: The story of two thieves, looking to get by in a cruel and isolating world, each find their own kind of freedom, and learning what it means to be partners.The Estardian canon story of Rae and Pan.





	Against The World

**Author's Note:**

> Glossary:  
> Canitaurs- a race that appears half human, half animal (dog/cat/fox/etc.)  
> Sytaurs- like Canitaurs, but goats and deer  
> Arenas- think roman coliseums, with a huge fenced in camp with barracks for the fighters, which are only technically illegal.  
> Estarda- a landmass divided up into five general areas (trolls, elves, fairies, 'taurs, and humans), and three countries (elves, fairies, and humans).  
> -If anyone is super curious about this and Estardian politics, I'm planning on writing something up at some point, so let me know!

 

The noon sun blazed down on the dirt arena, illuminating the specks of dust that hung in the air as two figures circled each other. Yells and cheering from the crowd echoed fiercely but faintly in the ring.

One figure was a young man, a sytar with a bleeding nose - a present from his opponent, an older rough tabby canitaur. The sytar watched warily through his thick, dark curls.  The heat off the ground made the air in front of him dance, and the smell of sweat and blood thick in his nose. 

The arena was a large colosseum, hidden along with the rest of the complex deep within the woods of the wildlands. After the Great War, such lands were claimed by the winning human army, and their inhabitants either killed, fled, or sold. This particular arena was one of the more prosperous ones due to its close proximity to a good-sized city in the south. The complex itself was expansive enough that any rich human  who visited could spend the entire day in comfort, free to watch and bet on the constant fights in the main structure.

For the fighters who lived there though, it was a different story. All fighters had to make do with a single, long, barracks, with an aging thatched roof and glassless windows. Most of the captives spent the majority of their time they had away from the arena in the surrounding woodlands, where an area had been closed off with high walls and guard towers. The fighters’ only hope was to win enough money to buy their freedom by the time they had won their allotment of fights, after which they would be ‘retired’ and paired with a fresh recruit to train them and keep the fights from becoming too one-sided.

The boy sniffed in an attempt to clear the blood from his nose, and in a moment, the older fighter shifted and lunged forward. There was an instant of movement and it was over - the canitaur lay winded on his back with the sytar’s hoof on his opponent’s throat and his chest heaving from the effort of the throw. At a shout from a fat, pampered human sitting under a rich canopy in the bleachers, the sytar stepped back and immediately turned to exit the arena, exiting through one of the previously barred tunnels that lead to the fighters’ living area.

As Pancratio McCallegen, sytar fighter and captive from childhood, left the fight, his steely face never shifted.

From up in the highest, cheapest stands, a girl considered the fight with calculating eyes. She smiled, pleased to find such an easy solution to her problem. Now the only hurdle was who was doing the selling, and how much they were selling for.

Elfin ears twitching and disturbing auburn waves of hair, she made her way down to locate the owner.

* * *

 

Pan fidgeted with his wrist cuffs on the boulder he was using for a chair while an older, retired fighting sytar critiqued his fight while pacing.

“You have to be more  _ careful _ , Pan! Your opponents will be bigger and stronger than you and they  _ will kill you _ if you give them the chance!” Emori brushed back their long, dark hair which made the teacher’s hair ornaments clink softly as they rubbed their temples, calming down a bit. “No one is going to stop them from killing you.”

Pan simply frowned, leaning back to stare at the sky in an effort to avoid looking at his teacher’s scars. Emori had been a good fighter back in their day, but had survived their allotment of fights before they ever got a sponsor or enough money to leave. They had been impressed into service in the fighting ring decades earlier, during the Great War, where they had fought as a foot soldier. 

The pair were in what looked like an ordinary clearing in the forest but was actually one of many artificially built training spaces within the fighting compound.

“If you want to get out of here alive, you should listen to me, you know,” Emori said, crossing their arms, which while they were slight now, bore the traces of great muscle. Pan just rolled his eyes, irritated.

“What, so I can fight mediocrely for fifteen-odd years only managing to survive, and then train kids until I die, old, feeble, alone, and still captive? No thanks, I’d rather live my life, not  _ yours _ .” There was a beat of silence, where the wind blew through the trees and somewhere off to the east, a songbird began singing.

“Emori, I’m sor-” Pan started, sitting up sloppily. 

“I did not win my freedom because I had no sponsors. No sponsors means I made no money. I was already too old and did not have the brute strength to win,” the old fighter tersely cut him off. “You do.” Emori shifted, and fell into a defensive stance. “And besides that, you will have the advantage of my military teaching. Practice starts now.”

* * *

 

After training, Emori started to tell Pan about their time in the volunteer army in the Great War. The teacher liked to use this time before the evening meal to teach Pan about tactics and the mentality of fighting; their sessions always ended with the story of how Emori had gotten separated from the rest of their group, and ended up being sold to the arena’s owner. 

a messenger came running up to them. It was a pretty young faun named Alba, delicately built but very swift. She stopped in front of them, hands on her knees as her chest heaved from the exertion. 

“There’s- There’s a lady- here for Pan, Emori. She wants a sponsor interview!” Emori just raised their eyebrows while Pan swore quickly under his breath, stuffed the rest of the vegetable pie in his mouth, turned to Alba and said something completely garbled by the food.

“Hurry!” called the messenger, already leaping back into the forest towards the main building on her slight doe’s legs.

* * *

 

To get to the interview room, Pan and Alba had to pass through the hall where the fighters waited for their daily turn in the ring. Despite the torches placed and lit at even intervals, the stone corridor still managed to be dark and musty, the thin air vents near the tall ceiling doing little to help. A dank smell, not unlike sweat and wet dog, permeated the area, strongest near the innermost wall where the individual waiting cells were. As the sytars passed the haggard captives- canitaurs, elves, human criminals, and even a few wingless fairies, the unfortunate prisoners of war- all manner of insults, jeers and slurs were hurled at them, with only their fellow sytars staying silent.

A fighter may not always help, or even like those of their race in the arena, but they sure as hell stayed as far away from others as they could- bitterness ran deep and violent here,  _ and sytars were never the most popular, _ thought Pan, his mind full of spite. The canitaurs were wild enough with their captivity to turn their carnivorous sides against their one-time brethren, elves were always suspicious and refused to believe that sytars were anything but swindlers and thieves, and humiliated fairies far from home lashed out at anyone. But the worst was always the humans. They had no life to even dream of escaping to and thought only of how, even in the arena, even at their lowest, humans were superior. In a way, their sureness wasn’t untrue- the owner here was human, and no humans had ever died under his watch.

Alba winced as a particularly burly mountain-lion canitaur lunged forward at the pair, making the hall echo with the bars’ clanging. Sure, killing where the dear customers couldn’t see was highly discouraged, but a broken arm or cracked rib or even a busted inner ear would wind up being a death sentence by your next fight regardless.

As they approached the end of the hallway where a rug was laid out and the walls were free of cells, Alba silently nodded to the door and pantomimed knocking; then turned and left, as fleet-footed ever. Pan pushed down his impulse to just barge in, Emori’s voice in his head telling him it was unwise, and knocked as politely as he was able on the smooth, dark wood of the owner’s door.

* * *

 

Rae was getting bored. The owner- she’d already forgotten his name- was still prattling on about other fighters she could purchase. This one was more reliable, that one faster and quieter, another one stronger. She yawned indiscreetly, delicately covering her mouth with a gloved hand. At least the room was nice.

She scanned it with a practiced eye, assessing each item’s value and ultimately deciding this was the ‘B’ room. Impressive enough with its tall bookshelves, large window overlooking the forest, and grand rug and furniture. The chairs she and the owner were sitting in were especially nice. Velvet-covered. And even in red, her favorite!  _ Lovely, _ she thought. But it merely gave the impression of wealth- if it were robbed (or more likely given the man’s business, destroyed) the loss would not be insurmountable. The fat man was sitting across a desk from her (not real mahogany, something else stained) and by the  _ Twins _ , was he still talking? He really was determined to convince her to make another choice. Nevertheless, he almost certainly had another office, a finer one for richer clients whose purses were so swollen that they could only truly grow by stealing from the government. Tipping her head slightly in deep thought, Rae considered that. She should try that sometime. Before her face truly got out there as a professional thief.

A rough knock trying, and failing miserably, to be a polite knock at the door brought the half-fairie girl out of her thoughts. 

“Come in. You’re late!” barked the owner, his tone immediately changing from the wheedling tone he used on clients. The sytar entered the room quietly, the plush carpet muffling his hooves, but making the metallic clanking of his shackles more obvious as he fell into a stance of military attention.

“Now, as you can see,” started the owner.

“Thank you very much, you may leave now. I want to speak with him alone,” interrupted Rae, smoothly as she flashed a smile. The girl liked the spark in the fighter’s eyes, but the owner was driving her nuts and would probably disapprove of her plan. “I’m quite capable of defending myself should the situation arise. Now if you would kindly excuse us,” she added pointedly in response to the man’s shocked look. After a flutter of her eyelashes, the owner awkwardly retreated with a hissed warning to his fighter.

“Best behavior!” He released Pan’s arm and smiled at Rae on the way out. “It will be a pleasure doing business with you, miss Dean.” As soon as the door was shut after him, Rae dropped the damsel act and turned to the fighter.

“Let’s start with some basics. I’m Rae Dean, and I want to hire you as my bodyguard and general assistant. Unfortunately, I’m dead broke, and our fat slob,” she jabbed a thumb at the door, “is a money-grubber. What I  _ can _ do however is bet what money I do have on you in the arena. You win for me, I make enough money to buy your ass a ticket out of here. All I ask after that is obedience. Just work with me, and we’ll get on fine. Deal?” Rae waited, only a little nervous. She  _ could _ defend herself, but she really did need a partner to work at her best. As much as she hated to admit it.

Pan cocked his head to the side and crossed his arms across his chest. 

“... Hire me?” he finally asked.

“What? Oh, you’ll get half of my pay. I’m in a thieves’ guild if that’s not a moral problem for you, Mr.-” She paused. “What’s your name?”

“Pan,” he said flatly. The fairie raised her eyebrows.

“No family name? Were you taken so young? I will expect you to keep no secrets from me when you’re my hired muscle.” Pan frowned and moved to sit down in another client’s chair across from the girl.

“My full name is Pancratio McCallegen, but everyone knows slaves don’t have family names.” It was a well-known joke- canitaurs and sytars were the most common slaves, but had the strongest family bonds out of any of the races. Only rich fools truly believed that a person only had one name. Rae steepled her hands.

“Neither do half-human bastard fairie orphans. And yet, here we both are. When’s your next fight? I want to plan this well, because if I lose it all, or we’re found out, we’re both stuck here.” Rae pulled off her glove and offered the hand. “Well, what do you say? Partners in crime?” Pan smiled in a way that could only be described as evil, and they shook hands.

* * *

 

Years had passed since that first fateful day, and now Pan found himself here,  frowning as he surveyed the guards. There were four altogether, two at the gate to the enormous mansion and another two at the door. No matter how stealthy he was taking out the gate-guards, he’d almost certainly get tag-teamed by the wonder-bros at the door. And not in the good way. He  _ hated _ two-on-one fights, especially when he was the ‘one’ in that unfortunate equation and only had his fighting knives and the ‘two’ had spears and short swords. Multiply the ‘two’ by a longer reach and you got a dead sytar on the other end of that particular equals sign. Pan sighed, hard enough to throw his head down between his knees. At least they knew the lord of the house was loaded. Had to be, to afford all that weaponry for his guards. Or just paranoid. 

The sytar leaned back into the cover his darling Rae had found for them- a charmingly overgrown ruin with a good view of the main house.

“Can you do it?” Rae whispered, hardly making a sound. Pan heaved another mental sigh and cursed his infernal excessive loyalty and infatuation. He’d really do  _ anything _ for his partner, but she tended to ask an awful lot of him. He was a bodyguard, not miracle worker.

“Yeah, but a distraction would be a huge help.” That made his partner pout. Pan batted his eyelashes at her until she relented. He loved using his looks for evil.

“I thought you were supposed to be the brawn here. According to some legal document somewhere, I technically own you, you know.” She was even cuter grumpy. Pan grinned. “Even if it  _ is _ halfway across the damned continent.” 

“And your wish is my command. Don’t worry about it. I can take ‘em.” Probably. Only Rae could make him take such a stupid risk; even with Emori their relationship had stayed mostly business. But Rae, he’d follow her to the ends of the earth and into hell. So he’d take out the guards and carry all the heavy valuables, but he was damned if he wasn’t going to gripe about it to Nox later. A sytar had to have some limits.

“Alright. Let’s go, partner!” With that, Rae leapt gracefully down, her small wings slowing her fall and began heading across the lawn to a more deserted corner of the mansion. Pancratio McCallegen, professional thief and bodyguard, smiled as he drew his knives.

“Partners.”


End file.
